Time For Change

As I drive to work (like hundreds of my fellow West Virginian’s crossing a state line. I ponder why. Why do we continue to leave a wonderful state to work? Could it be that our elected officials have let us down for years or is it that no body wants to come to our state? Should we like lots of fellow statesmen move away. Or should we fix the problem. Why does the states around us continue to thrive and we continue to fall? We have a great location situated close to major markets. I feel that we have been afraid of change every election we continue to vote the same people into office, but we continue to complain about them. I like many have done this for years, so why do we continue to settle for the same results? Do we say “oh we can’t vote against this person or that person or is it this fiend or that friend?” Or maybe it is “they have been in office to long, you can’t win”. I think most people are comfortable with how things are. Well things could be better. If you would truly look around yourself you would realize that we need to change. Our wonderful state continues to plunge into the hole of poverty business continues to look elsewhere. Why? Why do we have to stand for it? We don’t. We have to accept change it is that easy. Change should not be something to fear; we change our clothing daily and don’t complain it is habit. We were taught to do this a child.

Speaking of child do you look forward to the day your children start driving this long drive to go to their job? I doubt that any of us want that. How many school special moments in your children’s lives have you missed because of work. How many times have you rushed up Rt. 50 to see your son/daughter in a school function? I know that I have, and I am tired of missing these things. So what can we do about it? Nothing? I think not I know the path we need to take. Change. Change the people that we have trusted for so many years to look out for well being. Vote! Don’t just hope that the right person gets into office. It can’t happen overnight our state did not plummet overnight. But we have to start. Think of who you went to school with how many are still in the area? I doubt that you can find half your class. I know that my class has left. What are we going to do about it? We all need to take a hard look around us.

Our county (Mineral) wants to beautify the appearance well the only we can, is if we can afford to do that. The only way we can afford to do is if we are working and where can we work, not close to home because there is no jobs. We can’t work close to home because our officials have let us down and not addressed the real issues. Change

We have to have it. It is the only way we can truly fix the problems. How many of us are ready to make that change? I hope to think I am not the only one that is ready for it. So this year let’s join together and make a change, In the Primaries and in the General election in November.

John Barnett

Purchasing Manager

Leesburg, VA

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Lyndie England, Which of These Doesn't Belong?

National Geographic Channel, which now irritatingly refers to itself as "Nat Geo," will be shortly running a new special on evil people in history. Amazingly Keyser resident Lyndie England will be featured.

Let's see. Adolf Hitler murdered 12 million people because of their religion, lifestyle, and politics. Stalin murdered tens of millions because of their economic class and politics. Just this week we saw some demented man in Georgia decapitating female hikers. And Lyndie England is evil?

At worst she was unprofessional. She held a position of trust in a prisoner of war camp in Iraq. At the camp, terrorists were humiliated by being forced to be leashed and photographed. England's main offense was being in the pictures, enjoying the humiliation of these people whose lives were dedicated to blowing up women, children, and US soldiers. She was a young woman in a stressful environment who made a poor choice, so therefore she is evil. Incredible.

In the hands of the media, concepts most people take for granted get skewed. Any form of psychological pressure gets redefined as "torture." Torture is something we generally see as negative. There is a huge difference between US interrogators wiping red ink that they claim is menstrual blood on prisoners to get them to talk and when the Soviet CHEKA peeled skin off people's arms and fed priests feet first into crematoriums. Liberals love to try and establish moral equivalence to confuse the issue. This television program seeks to establish moral equivalence between unprofessional behavior in our army and the worst in human history. They hate the army and its missions. This is how they discredit it.

Of course this "evil" woman now has paid her debt to society. She now is a productive member of the Keyser community, having joined its Board of Parks and Recreation last year. I suppose she is hatching her plans of world domination using that base. Today North End Park, tomorrow the world.

Another ridiculous example of the liberal media pushing its agenda.

Promises, Promises

Governor Joe Manchin in his State of the State Address touched on a variety of topics, most of which made different individuals and interest groups angry with him. Sometimes this is a mark of leadership. If you are not making someone mad at some point in time, you are not doing your job. The test of ideas ultimately lies in whether or not they work in the real world.

The PROMISE scholarship was born of good intentions. Enable the children of West Virginia to earn their way into college without worrying about the cost. Few will disagree with the nobility of this idea in general terms. Unfortunately the demonic law of unintended consequences took over. Grades in West Virginia high schools inflated tremendously as well intentioned teachers sought to not be the bad guys that kept their students from getting the coveted award. More students earned the money and costs leapt dramatically.

Only one Republican served on the original committee that developed the scholarship and according to this man, he was the only one that advocated for financial status of parents to be a factor. After all, does it make sense for the child of a parent with a six figure salary to get tuition paid? Most would say no, but poor taxpayers in West Virginia pay for the children of the upper middle class and wealthy to attend college. It has grown into almost a Social Security-like entitlement program. We must have some kind of income cut off for this program to ensure that the children that need help the most always can receive it.

Governor Manchin proposes that PROMISE recipients must remain in state for a certain number of years after they leave school. At this point the question is, why? West Virginia has very little opportunity outside of the government sector for college graduates. The Legislature will not pass the needed reforms repeatedly proposed by Republicans that would help stimulate private sector opportunity.

In fact the pattern often is that college graduates leave the state, build their resume in places such as Atlanta or Charlotte, then return when they have acquired the skills and experience to compete for the precious few positions available. So many more actually want to return than end up doing so, but that is the nature of our economy.

Certainly PROMISE costs a great deal and the state wants a return on its investment. Forcing graduates to serve a sentence in West Virginia might enable a few to eke out a job in their field or create something for themselves. Many will work service jobs or even live on welfare if they have a family to support. Most will ignore the edict.

It's frustrating to saythe same thing over and over when not enough people listen but here we go again. Build the conditions for a prosperous economy and it will happen.

Global Warming

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_first_snow_in_memory

In case anyone missed it, Yahoo! reported on the snowfall in Baghdad, that's right snow in Iraq. Now it doesn't appear that the snow stayed around for very long. I didn't see any snow men, and I doubt that the snow "stuck" as we would say, but quite the phenomenon. I bet President Bush is behind it. Remember he caused Katrina to hit New Orleans. This must be a parting gift to the people of Iraq.

I know that there is some global warming enthusiast answer for how global warming affects the seasons causing abnormal behavior in weather patterns, but snow in the desert? I am not a weather man, nor am I a weather enthusiast. I still walk outside in the morning to find out what the daily weather is going to be, so I will defer to more respectable meteorologists to explain this one to me.

Protecting Farmland in Grant County

Grant County recently added approximately seventy-five acres to land regulated under the 2003 Farmland Protection Act. Under this law, farm owners can choose to bind all future owners of the property, including purchasers and inheritors, to non development. No industrial or subdivision development can occur apparently ever. Only agricultural production or no activity will be allowed.

Both Grant and Hardy County have similar statutes and both have had land placed under this restrictive legislation. Although it is doubtful that many property owners would choose to give up their rights, one wonders what the overall effects could be in the long term. The value of the land will definitely drop over time, especially if it falls into non production. This means tax receipts will fall, at least until the taxes on productive land get raised to meet the shortfall.

Certainly at some point this will face legal challenges. Not every farmer's children want to farm. Some may want to make money in other ways if Grant County's land values continue to rise over time. Few, even farmers, will want to purchase land with such restrictions placed upon it. With little opportunity to sell or develop, if agriculture does not continue on the said lands, these properties will likely end up in government hands eventually. Either it will get seized for taxes, or the property owners will end up being bought out by the taxpayers.

Any time that legal restrictions get placed on property rights, even for seemingly benevolent reasons, the law of unintended consequences gets triggered. Many of these owners forfeiting their rights now will have cause to regret it later. If they do not, their children will. Should the demand for corn rise as expected due to increased bio fuels production, the marketplace will be the best protector of farmland.

Perhaps the worst part about this deal is how the taxpayers get stuck with an unnecessary deal. Individual property owners have the right to go to the courthouse and place covenant restrictions on their deeds. Farmer Brown can go down and protect his farmland until the end of time if he so chooses, only this law gives him $4,000 of taxpayer money to perform a task he can already do by himself at no cost to the rest of us.

This law was passed with the best of intentions. Agriculture is important to the economy and the traditions of this area. However market, not government solutions work best in the long run.

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By the way, many thanks to Shelley Moore Capito for her work in helping to spare thousands of West Virginians from paying the anachronistic Alternative Minimum Tax. It was passed in 1969 to tax the wealthy. Of course income levels considered wealthy in 1969 are not living in the lap of luxury today. Certainly it needs repealed, if only to prevent the headache of repeatedly going back and legislating exemptions to protect the middle class.